Day & Age
by after.a.hard.day
Summary: Prequels & Sequels to Bitter Refuge.// That which happened before, that which was never said. Every person has a story untold, their definition to be explored.
1. Chapter 1

**title**: Day & Age -- I. _defeat_.  
**characters:** Pein, Konan.  
**summary:** The plans that fell apart -- this is how the God's die. This is immortality. This is the soul of change.  
**rating:** M  
**notes:** The first of the many, many, many extra parts to my other story _Bitter Refuge_. These will not always follow a straight order, most of it should be explanatory in where it takes place in the story though. This is the final moments of Pein, as I never gave him a proper death, I felt it fitting to write it first.  
**standard disclaimer applies.**

--

It was after the emtpy maganize clicked and hit the ground, that he realised that he had no more ammunition. He didn't show it, instead he threw his empty gun at the closest man and took the three steps back.

He stopped and turned. He was already at the edge of the tallest building in the heart of the empire. The center of their plans. Below him, he could hear a symphony of sounds: screaming, crying, rounds of guns and the shouts of soldiers with a rhythm of bombs behind all that -- Deidara's part of the plans still seemed to be working.

He had planned for every _possible _outcome -- except for an empty gun. His legs pressed against the concrete ledge of the building. Stopping, he dropped his hand into his pocket pulling out his communications device, and as soon as he hit call, the bombs stopped, the screaming stopped, the sound of his work just _ended_.

"_Hello, Pein._"

"Tobi... Madara."

He had not planned for this betrayal.

His fingers dug into the device. "You planned this, didn't you?"

"_Your time, Pein, is not at hand. The men you need to die for you aren't enough -- yet. I thank you though. Without you, what will be possible shall now be realised._"

The line went dead.

He looked up. The men who had been chasing him were standing there, bodies rigid, guns pressed to their chest.

He could hear a whirring and booming behind him. His coat and hair was blowing in front of him. He already knew who it was: Konan. Her job had been aerial reports. He knew that she knew, and probably had known all along that it would come to this.

Could it have ever been anything else?

"It is a cycle." As he turned to step onto the ledge, he could see what was going to happen in his eyes -- that unnerved even the hardest of men and the most trusting of children -- he saw his body fly out with the impact of the bullets, and from all angles he could see the way his back would bend and how he would fall. How the spray of blood would follow and splatter against the grey building and its blue tinted glass -- how Konan would use her helicopter to crash into his body and then into the building as it flew at a angle. He would never be captured. He would burn at the head of this great pier with no humanity left.

He could see it all, for he had planned this.

Shoulders square, he again faced the group of soldiers.

"Now," Commanding as he ever did. "Make me your God."

--


	2. Chapter 2

**title**: Day & Age -- II. _c__eremony._  
**characters:** _Sakura, Ino._  
**summary: **"Give him back," she was screaming, "Give him back! This was all for nothing, and you got us all killed! You killed us! We're dead, we're all dead!"  
**rating:** M  
**notes: **Here is after the battle of The Valley of The End, and Sakura is dealing with the Ceremony in which she is awarded the Fourth's Cross, the highest award you can receive in BR-verse.  
**standard disclaimer applies.**

**--**

The silver cross was cold in her hands.

_Where are the others?_ Her mind muttered at her. _Naruto said he'd win this. Where's Naruto? This isn't my moment. This isn't mine. Naruto..._

She closed her fingers around it, and then brought her hand up to her chest. Bowing deeply to the flag of the Empire, she sucked in a breath as cold air passed over her neck.

The brand. It was burning – burning like when they first put it on. She wanted to scratch it, pull it off. Take it and all its memories away. This was a drug; this situation was the hospital ward after an overdose. Her friends? The once-upon-a-time fairytale enablers of her now glorified addiction? All dead. Dead, like dealers always are. She'd been stupid in following their pipe. Stupid and in love.

_You are here to be psychopaths, and the only ones who understand are your fellow psychopaths. So stick with them and the Empire, and you'll always have victims. Always. _

I get it now Kakashi, she thinks. I understand. She can't go back, and she wants to scratch like users do.

"You may now pin your cross."

She knew of a few others in this line: Ino, eyes flatter then Sakura's own, blinking at the flag like she's really seeing it. Like she's going to cry. Shikamaru should be here – she'd heard he'd survived – but his space was vacant. So many empty spaces.

She looked at the flag.

She looked at cross in her hand. The fine marks up her arms, training and battles, fighting for her life and fighting for fun. She closed her eyes and saw their dying faces and wanted, wanted to be with them because she wouldn't have to feel this.

Beside her, Ino started screaming. Screaming words so loud – words that sounded like lies, like she had nothing left or something. Sakura blinked and started at what had been her closest friend all these years. She was losing her mind, because she could swear Ino was crying and screaming and getting dragged away. Nothing left? They had everything left... they were the beloved of the Empire... surely that was what it was all about?

"Give him back," she was screaming, "Give him back! This was all for nothing, and you got us all killed! You killed us! We're dead, we're all dead!"

Ino's cross flung out of her hand, skittering across the room as her screams subsided down and out of the building. The cross lay on the ground, untouched. It would be swept up in the trash, or maybe one of the cleaners would give it to their child, or sell it. Something. It was worthless in the end. The ceremony continued.

Sakura pinned the cross on, as if nothing had happened – her hands steady, her eyes forward. That's what Sasuke had told her: plan ahead and have a way forward. It was what Naruto reinforced with his endless training, with the experiments. Just not to end up...

She looked at Ino's cross on the ground.

... discarded.

The ceremony finished. Sakura waited for the room to clear before picking up the pendant where it had fallen.

--

At the foyer of the building as Sakura was leaving, Ino sat waiting for her – pale and calmer but still shaking. She grabbed Sakura's leg as she walked past, clawing at her to stay, to leave, to take her somewhere. Sakura kneeled, taking Ino's hand and pressed the Fourth's Cross back into her hands, closing her fingers over it. Ino began to cry again, but this time, quietly and with no more passion.

"It's all we've got Ino, all we've got."

With that, she stood and took her leave.

--


End file.
